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Manchester United’s Champions League turnaround

November 8, 2018by US Soccer Players

The soccer news starts with Manchester United's late winner to beat Juventus 2-1 away in the Champions League. Though the 89th minute winner came from a deflection off of Juventus's Alex Sandro rather than the type of wonder goal Cristiano Ronaldo scored to put Juventus up in the 65th, it still counts. How much for Manchester United is now the question.

We're not far removed from open speculation on who would become the next Manchester United manager. Jose Mourinho's position has been interesting, to put it mildly, since he turned the media availability during the club's summer tour of the United States into an open conversation over squad selection, his star players, and post-World Cup vacations. Now, he's closer to his old "special one" reputation than as a problem begging for an obvious solution.

It's still an open question whether or not things have changed for the better at United. A win is a win is a win, or something like that. In big picture terms, Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri did the better job of providing context.

"We need to keep working," Allegri said. "We made too many mistakes tonight. We played well, but tonight shows that good performances aren’t enough. You can’t always win in football and this was the least damaging game to lose."

That's because Juventus was one of our three teams that had yet to drop a point in the Champions League so far this season. Now, there are none. Juventus is top of Group H with a two-point lead over Manchester United who in turn have a two-point lead over 3rd-place Valencia. Young Boys are in last place with one point.

"We have a final now to play at home," Mourinho said about navigating the rest of their Group H schedule. "We thought we were going to have two finals to play and now we have one final. And if we win that final against Young Boys, if my mathematics at the moment is right, then we qualify with a victory against Young Boys. So I think now I leave it to Old Trafford people."

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